Journals of the First Fleet
There are 20 known contemporary accounts of the First Fleet made by people sailing in the fleet, including journals and letters. The eleven ships of the fleet, carrying over 1,000 convicts, soldiers and seamen, left England on 13 May 1787 and arrived in Botany Bay between 18 and 20 January 1788 before relocating to Port Jackson to establish the first European settlement in Australia, a penal colony which became Sydney.
The fleet sailing into Botany Bay, an engraving from the published diary of Arthur Phillip
Drawing of an emu from his journal
William Bradley's journal
The first page of John Easty's journal
The First Fleet was a fleet of 11 British ships that took the first British colonists and convicts to Australia. It comprised two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports. On 13 May 1787 the fleet under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, with over 1400 people, left from Portsmouth, England and took a journey of over 24,000 kilometres (15,000 mi) and over 250 days to eventually arrive in Botany Bay, New South Wales, where a penal colony would become the first British settlement in Australia from 20 January 1788.
An engraving of the First Fleet in Botany Bay at voyage's end in 1788
Lady Penrhyn
An English Fleet in Table Bay in 1787, by Robert Dodd
The First Fleet arrives in Port Jackson, 27 January 1788, by William Bradley, an officer on HMS Sirius.